For sure. Common sense <> common, etc… although it does seem relevant that it was specifically a Japanese-language sub-community who were reacting here.

I have to say it feels like a really familiar, NGO-flavored disrespect, though: “we’re doing this favor for underrepresented language communities,” regardless of whether they want/need it or not.

“There’s only X number of you having to shoulder the load in XX sub-community, don’t you want us to impose a bunch of ‘help’?”

Well, no, if the choice is between a formidable volume of slop and a smaller but well-executed volume of volunteer labor-of-love…

(…I say as a person very much without all sides of the story, and shooting from the hip a bit. I don’t mean to impugn anybody’s intentions, and I imagine at the end of the day we’re all on the same side here.)

I've written a few RFCs.

For any RFC, there will be a "comment" after publication from someone who did not take earlier comments seriously enough to read them.

…and, for that matter, there was an earlier draft phase where the author was R’ing For your C. And you could have jumped in then and been more-or-less welcome.

Ok, how the perfect reaction would be if you were at charge?

I understand people have sympathy inclination to victims, so everyone would assume the victim is good and other side is bad. I have worked long enough with japanese people knowing they can throw unpredictable tantrums.

As a manager, what would be your best course of action to deal with similar situation?

long and slow consensus building that weighs existing stakeholder's opinions heavily vs doing "the right thing" from the outset. So you move slowly and end up having very annoying conversations and compromises instead of just pushing something through. And the formal process is just a formality anyways, so then anyone not in the informal chatter just gets to experience the capriciousness anyways

The sort of consensus building ultimately involves having to do stuff to make people's opinions feel taken care of, even if their concerns are outright wrong. And you end up having to make some awkward deals.

Like with all this "Japanese business culture" stuff though, I feel like it's pretty universal in some degrees or another everywhere. Who's out there just doing things without getting _any_ form of backchannel checking first? Who wants to be surprised at random announcements from people you're working with? Apart from Musk types.

But of course some people are very comfortable just ripping the band aid off and putting people in awkward spots, because "of course" they have the right opinion and plan already.

Why context matters in judging whether some practice is good or not.

Not OP but the phrase in Japanese also carries a negative connotation, that important issues are decided by a shadow process hidden below the surface, beforehand by those in the loop. Meetings are just for show.